About Us

The Quantitative and Applied Ecology group has a rich history in scientific research…

We are the Quantitative and Applied Ecology group in the School of Botany at the University of Melbourne. We’re a diverse bunch of ecologists who work across a wide spectrum of taxa and environments from frogs to flowers and deserts to desktops. As a group, our research foci include environmental decision making, ecosystem management, and conservation biology, but we won’t shy away from attacking bread and butter topics like community and population ecology, and ecophysiology. The group also forms part of two larger research groups: The Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) and the NERP Environmental Decisions Hub. Two core beliefs underlie the group’s approach to research. First, we firmly believe that an emphasis on the careful and thoughtful use of quantitative methods and models underpins robust ecological inquiry. And second, to manage our environment and make good decisions requires an understanding of ecological, economic and social dynamics, built on a strong foundation of basic ecology.